The excavation at the Tomb of St Catherine in the Plain of
Salamis near Enkomi

T. Kiely

The ninth and eighth centuries BC on Cyprus was a
period of rapid social and economic change, when the kingdom of
Salamis emerged as one of the richest and most powerful states on
the island. This is particularly evidence in the so-called Royal
Cemetery located on the plateau to the east of the Late Bronze Age
site, between the village of Enkomi and the site of Salamis, some
of which were covered by huge earth and rubble mounds or tumuli.
Scientific excavations in this area between the 1950s and 1970s by
P. Dikaios and V. Karageorghis on behalf of the Cypriot Department
of Antiquities revealed a spectacular series of rich burials
belonging to the richest groups of Salaminian society, perhaps the
ruling family itself (see Karageorghis 1969 and 1999 for a useful
summary).

The British Museum team attempted to excavate one of these
burials, a prominent tumulus known locally as the Tumulus
(Toumba) of St Catherine after a nearby chapel dedicated
to the famous martyr (Murray et. al. 1900: 1-3 and fig.
1). They cut a horizontal shaft over 150 feet in length through the
mound, revealing a burial chamber with a pitched roof, built of
massive but finely-cut stone blocks. The chamber was empty,
presumably looted long before, but the long entrance passage of the
tomb produced an important inscription painted on a large sherd
(the so-called Grand Ostracon) in the local Cypriot writing system,
dating perhaps to the sixth or fifth centuries BC (Masson
1983: 316-318, no. 318). Its exact meaning and function
remains enigmatic: it may record a magical or religious text or
simply a set of prosaic accounts for a religious festival. The
nearby chapel of St Catherine was constructed in the chamber of
another of these monumental burial vaults, this time with a
barrel-vaulted roof, while a third tumulus further to the north
(named after St Barnabas) also has a stone-built burial chamber.
All of these tombs probably date to the Cypro-Archaic
period, around 750 BC-500 BC. It was the existence of these
later monuments which attracted the attention of early
excavators of the area, including the Turner Bequest team, to the
Late Bronze Age site of Enkomi further to the west.